


A Fresh Start

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Primeval
Genre: F/M, Getting Together, Light Angst, References Canon Character Death, Talking, maybe the start of something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-14 18:38:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8024713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: Jenny and Cutter finally find a moment to connect.





	A Fresh Start

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reggietate](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=reggietate).



> Written for reggietate who gave the prompt “autumn leaves”.
> 
> Originally posted to Livejournal in 2009.

Jenny curled her manicured fingers around the plastic cup of tea in a futile attempt to keep warm. It seemed that winter had chased autumn away everywhere but here, where dark red leaves still clung to the trees where they could. As she shifted her position on the damp bench to the picnic table she wondered if global warming caused that, or if the anomaly shining to her left was to blame.

Bored and cold as she may be, at least there were no dinosaurs roaming about or people in danger. The team could certainly do with a break. They’d barely stopped since Stephen’s death and all of them were ragged, nerves frayed to almost breaking point. Though in a small way it had brought them closer together, had reinforced for them just how much danger they were in. How fragile their lives really were.

How fragile time itself was.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Cutter asked, scattering her thoughts. Jenny looked up and, of course, he was talking about the anomaly.

“Mmm,” she responded, noncommittally, and took a sip of lukewarm tea; too much milk and not enough sugar.

Cutter sat, unbidden, on the bench opposite her. “You don’t need to be here, you know. You could be in the warm, back at the ARC.”

Jenny’s eyes narrowed. She was never quite sure whether Cutter was being considerate, or patronising.

“I have a job to do, just like you. In case you’d forgotten these are National Trust grounds – if any tourists come wandering around I’m the one that will need to talk to them.”

“I could -” But Jenny’s glare stopped him from completing that sentence. “Aye, maybe not.”

They could both clearly remember the last few times Cutter had been allowed to speak to members of the public, none of which had ended well. And the fact that Jenny would, probably, prefer to be in the warm didn’t mean that she was about to leave the team, _her_ team, on their own.

Cutter continued to look over at the anomaly, an almost reverent look on his face. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him look like that at an anomaly, though Connor had once told her they’d all been speechless by its beauty. Before.

She couldn’t imagine ever being anything but fearful of what the anomalies meant.

Her fingers twitched, cold seeping through to her bones. She’d been on her way to an old school friend’s hen night when the call had come through (invited more to boost up the numbers than due to any lingering affection), so she wasn’t exactly dressed for the weather. Again. She really needed to start keeping an extra set of clothes in her car. Ones that she didn’t mind getting ripped, or muddy, or covered in dinosaur entrails.

“Penny for them?” Cutter asked.

Jenny startled. “Oh, sorry, I was just…” She motioned to their surroundings, the reds and yellows of a dying season, still clinging on to life. “I feel a bit – different, I suppose. Out of place.”

“And time?” Cutter asked softly.

Jenny turned to look at him critically. He wore Stephen’s death like his personal cross, never putting it down for a moment. Instinctively she reached out and took his hand in hers.

“You can’t change what happened.”

“That’s just it,” he replied sharply. “I could.” They both looked over at the anomaly. It wasn’t doing anything in particular and the soldiers guarding it looked spectacularly bored.

“But you shouldn’t,” Jenny told him. “You’d be no better than Helen.”

Cutter frowned, then slumped even further down on to the bench. “Aye.”

It was moments like this that Jenny tried to imagine what had attracted Cutter to Helen. How different must she have been when they first met for him to have fallen in love with her? Had the anomalies changed Helen forever, or had Cutter always been blind to her faults?

They were questions she would never ask him, but they danced at the back of her mind whenever they had a quiet moment together. They warred for her attention along with the ones about Claudia – what she’d been like, how they’d first met, how he’d known that he was in love with her.

Which one of them he wished were here right now.

But Jenny couldn’t live her life by looking back to what might have been. She never had before and she certainly wasn’t going to start on that path now.

And she wasn’t about to let Cutter fall in to that trap either.

“Stephen wouldn’t want you to blame yourself,” Jenny finally said. “He took responsibility for his actions.” Her voice was firm and obviously had some effect because Cutter’s expression did relax a little. Or maybe the fact that he was absently rubbing his fingers along her hand was responsible. Either way, Jenny couldn’t help but share a brief smile with him.

“There really isn’t any point in you staying here. It doesn’t look like anything’s coming through the anomaly and besides,” he stared down at their entwined fingers, “you must be freezing.”

Jenny was about to deny it when a full body shiver took her by surprise and she was forced to acquiesce with a sheepish shrug. “Maybe I would be better off at the ARC.” She rose to go and tugged at Cutter’s hands, her decision made. “In fact, Abby and Connor could probably handle this, if you wanted to come with me?”

Cutter hesitated a moment, and then allowed Jenny to pull him up. Abby and Connor _could_ handle things without him, and if right now Connor was kicking leaves at Abby, he’d just pretend he hadn’t seen anything.

Jenny smiled, especially as Cutter seemed reluctant to let her hand go as she rummaged deep inside her bag for her car keys. As they walked side by side to Jenny’s car, Jenny couldn’t help one more wistful look back at the anomaly.

Not all the changes they faced had to be bad. Maybe there was hope for them after all.


End file.
